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So it all begins this morning with the "hey, did ya watch that game last night?" and such... ugh! The questionable contribution to small talk id one of the things that I least like about the football frenzy. EL and I spend the morning at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. I hear it has the largest number of bird species in North America. My mom and her boyfriend were with us as we walked along ponds with alligators basking on the banks and saw an assortment of spoonbills, wood ducks, pelicans, herons, etc. The prize for me would have been to get close enough to a Whooping Crane to photograph, but the two we were fortunate enough to see were way out of reach of the longest glass in my bag. It's hard to believe that just a few short years ago, there were only 15 of these birds left on Earth. The wild population is now around 470 and stable... still endangered, but so much better. We caught part of the game last night, but went to bed early. I walked past the aftermath of the weekends celebrity red carpets and street parties on the way into the office. I'm glad that I was listening to the waves crash against a beautiful, sun lapped and sandy beach during the traffic jams and cover charges up here... that we were witnessing something so endangered that our children may never see outside a textbook while the pre-game festivities filled Houston's veins. I'm so over it.